Category: *Bistro

Chinatown has always been dominated by Chinese food. Now, it welcome Monochrome Fusion Bistro to its vicinity. It is occupying a space along South Bridge Road.

Another view

Monochrome Fusion Bistro has a black and white colour theme as the name suggested. This theme is very well executed to every aspects. Even their uniform and a few dishes.

Starters and Sides Menu

Look, and the menu gets the Monochrome theme as well. The selection in the menu was pretty extensive. On it, I could find many dishes that aroused my interest.

Mains and Desserts Menu

On my first visit, during their soft launch, I tried one of which the Monochrome themed dish, the Monochrome Squid Ink Risotto. I never quite like Squid Ink Risotto as most has a modest amount of a fishy taste, which I find it unpleasant. The service crew was in awe with this dish and highly recommended this to me and assured that it didn’t contain that kind of taste so I braced myself up and gave it a try. Luckily, that fishy taste that I dislike was bare minimum. I find it very much acceptable. There are lots of mushroom in it and the pan seared quinoa provided the crisp and is a great add. This certainly differentiated their risotto apart from others.

Monochrome Squid Ink Risotto

Another highly recommended dish, a dessert, the Sticky Date Pudding was excellent as well. Though it was pretty sweet. But what really disappointed me was Monochrome served me a scoop of melting ice cream.

Sticky Date Pudding

I would not go for its Coffee on my next visit. It was below par. It has a low acidity and full body with a slight bitter after taste.

Cappuccino

I visited Monochrome again, after they ended their soft launch. I tried the Snapper Loins Cha Soba. Basically, the soba was on a shallow soup of miso, topped with a snapper loin and sprinkled with bonito and seaweed flakes. Personally, I find this dish a little bland for my liking.

Snapper Loins Cha Soba

It was the dessert that I really enjoyed. I wanted the Molten Chocolate cake but it wasn’t available. Instead the service crew was quick to recommend me the Mint Chocolate Lime Cake. I never thought Lime and Mint could pair so well. It ended up as a minty, sourish, chocolaty cake. You could taste each individual flavour without any being overshadowed. I tend to savour the refreshing mint first and ended with the lime sourish taste and throughout both the mint and lime blended with the chocolate cake. Degusting it with the ice cream, gave a different perspective to the dish which I enjoyed more. And I noted that this round the ice cream wasn’t melted when served.

Service at the Monochrome Fusion Bistro was friendly and warm, and they actively sought customer feedback and I am certain, I will return.

Olivo Bistro & Bakery was rebranded from Ren Gastronome, previously located at Paya Lebar. Now it is at the Aperia Mall at Kallang, Level 2.

Interior

The interior design of the bistro resembles of the Mediterranean Style.

Menu in Tablet

Olivo Bistro is pretty hi-tech. They provide a tablet at each table for diners to place their own order. They offer wide range of selection; pastas, pizza, sandwiches, burgers, soup, salad, dessert and etc. They serve a wide range of alcoholic drinks too.

Weekdays Promotion

If you are dinning during weekdays’ lunch, you may want to take note of the daily promotion. On each day, when you order food from the designated category, you are entitled to a free soup. But you need to remember to add it into your order. Once you select your food, you are directed to the next page, scroll down to look for “Promo Soup” and add it into your order. And once you are done, remember to proceed to order summary, to click “Confirm” so that your order is now on its way to the kitchen.

Besides the Weekdays’ lunch promo, there are also some other on-going promotions such as the Happy Hour promo and so on.

Tomato Soup

My promo soup was the Tomato Soup. It was a creamy, smooth and tangy tomato soup.

Pesto Pasta

Since I was there on a Thursday, promotion was for Pasta and Pizza, I ordered a Pesto Pasta with add-on Prawns. You can select from the list of add on. I find the dish, especially the prawns a little too salty. But what I like is the pine nuts that were added to the pasta. The nuts not only provided the crunch, the nuttiness blended very well with the pesto sauce.

Triple Chocolate Cake

I hardly end my meal without a dessert and I ordered the Triple Chocolate Cake. The three layers, top of white chocolate mousse, middle of bitter sweet chocolate mousse and bottom of dark crunch is certainly a rich cake. It is best to savour the three layers together.

Latte

Olivo Bistro didn’t have my favourite Cappuccino so I went for Latte. The coffee was a low acidity, medium to full body with nutty and chocolaty flavour.

The pricing at the Olivo Bistro was pretty reasonably with pretty decent food, coffee and desserts and the service was friendly and warm. I might pop by again to try other items.

The Workbench Bistro is another eatery opened along Ang Mo Kio Avenue 1, after Mojito Cafe.

Interior of the bistro is really simple with cemented wall and same simple brown wooden tables and black plastic chairs.

The Workbench Menu

Currently, they are having a one page menu. I must say, at a glance, it wasn’t interesting. They served a few sides like fries, nachos, buffalo wings, four pastas, one burger and one sandwich. Of course you will find the standard espresso based drinks and they have ice cream and waffle too.

Orders are to be made over the cashier and paid, and food will be served.

Crab Meat Linguine

I decided to go ahead with the Crab Meat Linguine though I am not a fan of tomato based pasta but I like both crab meat and linguine. The sauce was pretty acceptable with very light tomato taste and there was enough of crab meat for the entire pasta portion. They could have added a little more white wine to the sauce. It was a pity that the pasta wasn’t Al Dente. It was on the soft side, just a little under Al Dente. I provided the feedback to owner and she was very apologetic about it. She even offered to re-make a new one for me but I declined her offer, instead she offered me a scoop of ice cream. It was very nice of her. I like they way she did on the service recovery aspect. I really think it was excellent.

Cappuccino

The Cappuccino was medium body, low acidity with a nutty, chocolaty flavour note. I like such coffee.

Gula Melaka Ice Cream

Here comes the ice cream, I chose the Gula Melak Ice Cream out of the ten over flavours. The Ice Cream was pretty good. It was smooth and creamy with a good gula melaka flavour in it. The sweetness was at an acceptable level.

Despite, the pasta was a little disappointing, but I like their service level and I am willing to give them another chance. Moreover, the ice cream is of pretty high standard. I will return to try it with the waffle and the Beef Burger, saw a few tables ordered this item and it looks inviting.

Most might be unfamilar with Penang Lane. The icon landmark in Penang Lane is the Red Cross House. Hop Heads is located at the ground floor of Innotel Hotel, situated on the right of Red Cross House.

Al Fresco Seatings

Hop Heads has a very casual setting with both indoor and Al Fresco Seats. The menu was a one page with some salads and pretty interesting mains and Taps and sharing plates. Something unique about Hop Heads is that they offers lots of craft beers. For beer lovers, you certainly got to check it out.

Menu

I went with my cousin to check it out and we pick the outdoor seat as it was a pretty cooling day.

Truffle Chips

We got two Tapas, Truffle Chips and the other known as BSA ( Bacon, Scallop & Asparagus). The Truffle Chips are deep fried potato dice with Truffle flavour. Nothing very special, except for the Truffle. The Truffle fragrance was stronger when the dish was cool. This is good for sharing. For 2, a little too much.

Bacon Scallop & Asparagus (BSA)

We were expecting a little more from the BSA. We were kind of surprise to see a plate of literally Bacon, Scallop and Asparagus. drizzled with some brown sauce. Nevertheless, we did enjoy the dish.

Shrooms Burger

For Mains, we have a Shrooms Burger and Green Curry Chicken Sandwich. We were surprised to find slices of Shiitake-like Mushrooms instead of either Button Mushroom or Portobello Mushroom. It wasn’t too bad though, except that it was a little too salty for us. We like the Beef Patty, tasty with perfect marinate.

Our last dish was the Green Curry Chicken Sandwich. I was expecting a Hot sandwich but it turned out to be a Cold Sandwich. It didn’t have the usual Green Curry flavour instead you find it slightly spicy with a refreshing tangy taste as yoghurt was mixed to the Green Curry. And you will find some very interesting or rather unexpected ingredient in the sandwich. Try it to find out.

Green Curry Chicken Sandwich

As neither of us is a beer drinker, we did not order any beer for trying. Instead we ordered a Root Beer (A&W) and a Homemade Iced Lemon Tea. The Lemon Tea was disappointing as there was an unpleasant after taste. In fact, I would describe it as awful after taste.

Food served at Hop Heads were delish, an exception to the Lemon Tea. We like especially the Green Curry Chicken Sandwich as it is something unique. With food and beer served, Hop Head certainly is a great place for chill out.

Saturday House, another eatery, a Bar & Grill House is now at Upper Paya Lebar Road. Upper Paya Lebar area, predominately an industrial area is really getting crowded and busy.

Inside Seats

The ambience is very much like a Beer Garden. The entrance is open all the time with natural light and wind getting into the Grilled House. It is definitely a causal dinning environment. As the space is big and it is definitely good for big groups of gathering.

Brunch Menu

Pizzza, Starter, Salad and Soup Menu

Pasta, Char Grilled and Comfort Food Menu

As for the menu, the presentation wasn’t impressive. But the items on the menu was superb. There were lots of variety from Brunch menu to Pasta, Pizza, Char-grilled, Starters and Desserts. Pretty much to choose from. The Brunch Menu is certainly value for money as it comes with a coffee or tea. Topped up with a dollar or two for other drinks.

Cheesy Baked Mushroom Toast

I went for the Brunch Menu. I was keen to have the Cheesy Baked Mushroom Toast. I enjoyed the dish very much. The toast was packed with mushroom and tons of cheese. The best part, it wasn’t white bread which I thought it would be but Brioche, my fave. The snail sausage was awesome too. The texture is of coarse grind but was tasty marinated. The only downside is the salad. If they have paired it with a salad that comes with a better dressing, it would have been perfect.

Cappuccino

The cappuccino is decent with full body, medium to low acidity and high aroma. It’s flavour hint is of some berries and spice.

I enjoyed my Sunday brunch very much and I am eyeing on the Char-grilled menu and the Mini Burgers next. Lol.

My lunch today was at The Fat Cat Bistro at Holland Village, though my original plan was to lunch at the newly open Three Buns by The Potato Head folks along Keong Saik Street, that serves the most talked about in town burgers. This was due to one of our colleague was moving back to India, one of them decided to give him a last treat for lunch before he headed back to India and I was asked along. And so I agreed to the invitation. My colleague found out that our Indian colleague have never been to Holland Village while he was in Singapore for the past two years.

The Fat Cat Bistro Front

As we were roaming around Holland Village, we stumbled upon The Fat Cat, serving Indian, Thai and Western Cuisine and our Indian colleague chose The Fat Cat as it was serving Indian food. It was a wise choice regarding food, no regret on the food, something, not so pleasant happen though.

The Fat Cat Bistro Interior

The interior of The Fat Cat Bistro is cosy though simple.

Set Lunch Menu

They were serving set lunch. There were two options, two courses (one starter and one main) and three courses (two starter and one main). There were a few choices for both the starter and main. The three of us opted for the two courses set lunch. As I was interested to try all the starter, I suggested that we each order one different starter. They agreed.

Mantra Chicken Wing

We ended having the Mantra Chicken, Thai Spring Roll and Mushroom Soup as starter. By the way, the Mantra Chicken comes in a pair of wings, but you are seeing only one in the photo as one dropped into my warm water (which they charging 50 cents). The water splashed all over the table and onto me. The staff was apologetic though. She reached out to the nearest piece of serviette, that was on the next table, and started wiping off the water. Instead of wiping the water away from me, she wiped towards me and the water started dripping off from the table and onto my dress. I made a noise and she was oblivious toward it. Sigh. Luckily, it was plain water and not anything like like red wine. It would have been a disaster and I would have been very upset. And next, very quickly, she removed the cup of water and then she forgotten to bring me a new cup of warm water and I have to walk to her and remind her. Another sigh.

Thai Spring Roll

So much so for the incident, back to the food. The Mantra Chicken was very tasty and crispy. Excellent.

Mushroom Soup

The spring roll though delicious, especially the sauce. It was sweet and sour, spicy and briny. The but here is, it wasn’t well fried. The one that I ate the skin of the spring roll was filled with oil.

As for the Mushroom soup, very mushroomy. I mean lots of finely chopped mushrooms and flavour. It was not too creamy, more on the soupy side.

Butter Chicken

Both my two colleagues ordered the Butter Chicken with basmati rice. I tasted the butter chicken too. It was delicious too. The butter chicken was a lighter version from the one served in the usual Indian restaurant. Surprisingly, my Indian colleague loved it. I thought he would find it a little too light for his palate.

Minced Chicken with Basil & Jasmine Rice

I ordered something different from them. I ordered the Minced Chicken with Basil & Jasmine Rice. The minced chicken has a good amount of basil flavour. The first few spoonful of minced chicken that I took, I find that the spiciness level was still pretty acceptable. The more I ate, the spiciness built up in the mouth and soon I found myself tearing. So my advice for eating this dish is to go really slow and for those who don’t have high spice tolerance, either avoid this dish or ask for less spicy. One other reason why I like the dish was it was fried with some greens, long beans.

We were glad that our Indian colleague enjoyed the food very much. Thanks to my other colleague for the treat despite a minor incident. Oh ya, I think they didn’t waive off my warm water as a way to offer the apology. All these, in my opinion, indicate the service level they are providing.

Our verdict, great food. My additional comment, there are still rooms for improvement for their service.